If, like me, you have such a hard time writing notes that you've given up on the idea of taking notes, but you're still looking for an effective solution, this article and the concept of standing notes can help.

Why do you have to write notes?

How many times have you read a book, listened to a podcast, or simply had an interesting new idea during a meeting but only forgot about it a few days later? If the answer is oftentimes, you are not alone. 😊

Our brain is not reliable

The limits of short-term memory

Learning can be summed up in a process of linking notions from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. Short-term memory is useful for quickly retrieving information, but it is extremely limited: it can only contain 4 (+-1) blocks of information at a time. It's not made for complex thinking.

Worse! The curve, The oblivion curve, below shows us how information retention declines over time from the first exposure. This exponential decrease explains, for example, why we only remember a few snippets of a book read only a few months ago.

To summarize, our brain is limited and quickly forgets the information it wants to remember without any exercise to keep it. But that's not all...

Our cognitive biases

It's not just memory that calls into question the reliability of our brains; we also have a lot of cognitive biases: confirmation bias, attention bias, normalization bias, etc. Even though the brain is the most complex system in the human body, it has to face a lot of obstacles in order not to make a mistake.

For example, we argue to prove our initial point of view right and the debate often turns into a fight not to be lost. This is what Julia Galef calls “the soldier's state of mind” in her book”The Scout Mindset“. She opposes him to the state of mind of the scouts who will be guided by the search for what is closest to reality.

Just as the objective of a scout on a battlefield is to draw the most accurate map possible, taking notes becomes a map of our thoughts that we will deem to be as relevant as possible. This map shows us what we know, what we don't know and guides us in our thinking.

The concept of permanent notes

Where do permanent notes come from?

The “permanent notes” (Smart Notes (in English) is a term used in the book”How To Take Smart Notes“by S? Nke Ahrens who tells us the story of Niklas Luhmann, a sociologist who has published several hundred articles thanks in particular to his method of taking notes: the method Zettelkasten.

Start the notes system

When we talk about taking notes, we mostly imagine a person who writes down a few ideas on the fly during a meeting. But these notes are seldom used more than once or twice thereafter. In the long run, this kind of note-taking without structure is useless, which is why you need to create a system where each note added helps to snowball knowledge.

This system is a network of permanent notes. The aim is to create notes and to densely link them together. However, permanent notes don't fall out of the sky, the first step is to iterate several times with different types of notes. Let's look at the 3 types of notes that are essential for creating a network together:

• The loose leaves,
• the reading sheets,
• permanent notes.

The loose leaves

The loose leaves are simply the notes mentioned above, everyday ones: when an idea pop In our head or when we find an interesting idea, we write it down to free ourselves from a mental load. These sheets are our main source for new concepts.

Once these notes are taken, the second exercise is to Purify. With a routine: deleting irrelevant paragraphs, extracting ideas into several concise notes. It is the key to the accumulation of knowledge.

To start, I recommend creating one note per day and iterating on a small scale: create a new note every day but clean them up only once a week.

The reading sheets

The reading sheets are the notes while reading a book, a blog post, or when listening to a podcast. The important thing is to be able to write in your own words how to understand the information you have learned. Here, we want to transform passive reading into more active information gathering. It may seem like a difficult effort, but once I got used to it, I personally found it even more frustrating not to extract what I was interested in.

Permanent notes

Finally The permanent notes are atomic and connected notes. They therefore come from loose sheets and book sheets and only talk about a single subject, as simple as possible because you will want to connect it easily to others. They are the backbone of the system so we really want to be selective about what will become a lasting note.

Once a note is created, the second exercise is to scan your old notes and find possible connections. The only way to add a note to the system is through connections.

Improving step by step

The system should work like our brain: simple ideas linked together like a network of thoughts. Start small: one note at a time.

Notes don't have to be perfect from the start, and in fact, they never will be because writing is a difficult activity.

Why? Because it is a sum of several activities:

• write down ideas when they come up
• extract relevant information,
• criticize,
• make writing concise and concepts clearer,
• rewrite and rewrite again?

And all of these steps should be as separate as possible, because they inhibit each other. For example, during the first draft, you should not be afraid of appearing stupid or stupid, the objective of a draft is not to be good, but to be written on paper. There will be a time dedicated to self-criticism where we can improve our fitness. For now, just write as if you wanted to teach it to your child.

I warn you: it will be embarrassing.

You will say to yourself “is it me or a 10-year-old child who writes?” But the more you iterate, the better your grades will be, I promise you.

Permanent notes are your first feedback loop

And that's where it gets interesting. By habit, you are a better critic than a writer and knowing that you are going to review your notes, you are already improving by iterating alone. These notes become the medium between the “you” of the past, present and future. Finally, you will be more and more comfortable with criticism from other people because your goal will simply be to improve your system and by extension your way of thinking.

How permanent notes help me personally

I have been using this system since the beginning of 2021 and I am delighted!

To convince you, I am making a list of what I like the most:

• 📝 I can write articles like this simply by selecting notes that I have already written. The blank page syndrome no longer exists,
• 🧠 trusting a single system allows the brain to really free itself from the mental load. We know that we will find the information in the right place,
• 🕸 linking concepts from work, my passions, or my entertainment opens up possibilities that I didn't think of. I feel more creative!
• 📈 as said above, I become comfortable with the feedback from other people and I become proactive in asking for their opinion on how I can improve,
• Seeing your network grow little by little is super rewarding! It's like taking care of your small garden.

However, I would also like to warn you about mistakes I may have made:

• Collecting Articles just for the desire to accumulate articles to read doesn't help. If there are too many, we don't need it,
• creating a system by project means losing the essence of the system; we want to be able to make connections between subjects that seem too distant at first glance. The system should surprise us,
• think too much about the structure of our notes and files in the note-taking application: what is important is especially to find your way around easily, the structure can change over time,
• copy and paste what you find on the internet: link the pages you want to reference instead. But if the notes are not yours then the system is no longer relevant (and as I like to quote) CGP Grey: “If your mind is constantly filled with the voices of others, how do you know what you think about anything?”).

With all this in mind, I created An example of personal notes which will allow you to see it more concretely!

Introduce permanent notes into your projects

I am currently thinking about how we can use the potential of the Zettelkasten method in a collective. At BAM, I work as a team as a project manager and I am constantly asking myself the question of how to improve communication between people over time. Like the visual management, good documentation is essential for the success of a project. Having clear standards connected to each other seems to me to be the ultimate documentation! But I have not yet had the opportunity to experience it. What do you think? Feel free to contact me on Twitter to discuss it @julien_calixte !